


Next Time I'll Write In Pencil

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Black Swan
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Post-Canon, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-08
Updated: 2011-05-08
Packaged: 2017-10-19 11:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily has a feeling this should be simpler than it's turning out to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next Time I'll Write In Pencil

****Imagine this: a woman’s slender fingers – nails kept short – wrapped around a pen. The tip is bleeding thick, drippy black ink against the blank white gloss of a greeting card.

Lily sighs, dropping the pen to tug at her hair. Underneath the café table, her feet tap against the tops of her empty shoes in time with the tinny radio; she doesn’t notice that the blood is soaking through the tape on her toenail. Her half-drunk coffee has gone cold, but it didn’t cost much in the first place. Less than the card.

“Hey.” She catches the eye of the woman at the next table, grey-haired and grandmotherly. “Should you start out a get-well-soon card with ‘dear so-and-so,’ or just a name?”

The older woman looks up from her newspaper, blinking. Brown eyes. “Um, it depends. Who’s it for?”

“A – a coworker.”

“That’s probably just a name, then. ‘Dear’ isn’t wrong, but it’s a bit intimate _and_ a bit formal, so it might not come off the way you mean.”

“All right, thanks.” Lily outlines the name neatly and drums the pen against the table, frowning. Four letters and a dash look pathetically tiny crammed up in the corner, but she isn’t much of a judge. In the corner of her eye she catches her helper smiling.

“I don’t mean to pry, but if you don’t mind – I’m guessing you like him?”

“Her, actually,” Lily says absently, and blushes as the words reach her. “I mean –”

“Her, then.” She hears a rustle of paper. “I’m going to miss my train, but I wish you luck. Remember, no matter what you say I’m sure she’ll be glad to know you’re thinking about her.”

Lily’s still flushing as the door swings shut. She closes her eyes and reaches for the pen, swallowing a sip of bitter coffee without thinking.

 _Hey,_ she writes. _I hope you’re doing okay. Your mom won’t let me see you, but the nurses said a note would be all right._ Tap, tap, tap-tap-tap.

 _We all miss you._ Pity her, at least. Lily scowls. _I mean, some of the girls are still jealous, but everybody knows you deserved it now. I hope you can come back in time to finish the run, I miss seeing you dance._ She starts to cross out the last five words, stops, tries without thinking to wipe away the mark and winces at the smudge. Oh well. _And hey, there’s always next season, right? I can’t wait to see what you do with that, especially if it’s a role that isn’t as tricky for you._ Tap-tap-tap again, pen against her lips this time.

 _I can help you get back in practice once the doctors say it’s okay, if you want. Give yourself a break until then though, okay? One of the girls I knew in California really messed her feet up that way._ She wishes she had some news to pass along, but there’s nothing but how the company’s doing. _I actually have a lot of your stuff that you left in the dressing room, cause I didn’t know if you had anything in there you maybe didn’t want your mom to know about. I can send it to your house or hang onto it till you’re out of there or whatever you’d like._

There’s only a little space left on the page now, to her surprise. Maybe this isn’t that hard. _Write me back if you feel up to it, okay? I already wrote my return address on the envelope, so I can’t forget._ She almost underlines “if you feel up to it,” but Nina probably has enough sense for that.

Signing it sets her pen tapping back against her teeth. Sincerely? From? Just her name?

 _Your friend, Lily,_ she scrawls, and sketches a tiny heart after the name.

Four days later, she collapses at her kitchen table and her fingers fumble as she tears open an envelope that reeks of disinfectant.

 _Dear Lily,_ the letter begins. The writing is shaky, small, but perfectly legible.

Lily smiles.


End file.
